Dwelling
by accordianpea
Summary: After the events in Ultimate Enemy, Danny can't figure out what it is that makes a person irredeemable. Danny's PoV, a mindless drabble about Vlad


I wondered if I should talk to him. At first, it didn't occur to me that nobody else would know about the whole Dan incident. You may think me tempted to gloat about it, but to be honest, if I could remove the memory from everybody... Sam, Tucker, even (especially?) myself, I would. To know that they can look at me and see that in me is too much. To see it in myself is disgusting. I've only gleaned over the subject with Tuck a few times, and he'd always assure me it wasn't _actually_ me. He'd insist it was the specific circumstances, that it was all caused by Dan, that I'm not really him. He speaks like we're two completely different people, like not even a fragment of myself was in that monster. I think that's how he has to see it.

I feel a little humbled to have been given a second chance at something I rightfully shouldn't have. If it weren't for Clockwork, Tucker, Sam, and Vlad, I would be that disaster. Vlad doesn't remember anything. I don't know why I thought he would; I wondered (hoped?) if maybe there would at least be a vague imprint on his mind. I stopped enjoying hating him. I started thinking about his actions and what led him here. I wondered things I'd honestly just been too stubborn to bother lending a thought to before. I thought he didn't deserve even my flippant mental attention. But now, what with him playing such a heavy role in rescuing everyone I loved, I felt almost obligated to spare a thought for him. I said myself that everyone could use a second chance. I'd always thought Vlad so thoroughly villainous and beyond reproach, but I saw a future where I was just as (or rather, way more) villainous, and didn't hesitate to help myself. I'm sure in many perspectives, I didn't deserve such benevolent help from so many, as we all plainly watched a future where I was a horrible monster. My view on Vlad shifted, as he was in a position to kill me and save everyone in a different method- a method that was arguably as valid as helping me. Either one would have ended in the future changing, Dan disappearing. I ruined his admittedly already pretty wretched life in that timeline, then handed him my life and destiny. While I'm sure anyone else thinks what he did as an 'absence of murder' I think of it kind of more like 'saving me'. I can't help it.

Getting carried away. Anyway, I started thinking about Vlad, who he was and how he became that way, because of this weird sense of obligation.

When Vlad was infected, how was it? Did he struggle with his powers as I did? Did he clumsily fall through chairs, or scream as he suddenly slipped through the floor? Was anyone there to lift him back up, or tell him it was okay when he broke item after item when his hands became intangible without warning? I couldn't imagine dealing with all of that on my own. I remembered that Vlad had been hospitalized after his infection; probably all the doctors and nurses thought he was going insane, babbling about parts of him disappearing, clumsily dropping everything. Maybe he himself thought he was going insane. Nobody could tell him otherwise. If I were all on my own, how long would it have taken to realize I was a ghost? How many years did Vlad suffer in that hospital filled with people, none of which would assume such a ludicrous thing? It would be easier to believe a person was crazy than a half-ghost hybrid.

I think about him and feel haunted. Vlad had his powers for 20 years, but how many of those did he even recognize them as powers? Was it a year of floundering in terror at himself, or five? Or even ten? I realized that I saw Vlad on a surface level which was, you know, Absolutely Crazy; but if there could be a future where I was a murdering psychopath, a future I could never have imagined, who's to say a young Vlad wouldn't look on his 40 year old self with the same terrified and lost expression? Wouldn't wonder, '_but how could this happen to me, I'm nothing like this_'? I was paralyzed with these thoughts some nights. I'm only a little embarrassed to say I cried at imagining what my own 'turning' would have been like without Tucker and Sam there to assure me it wasn't all in my head. Only a little because it's a totally reasonable thing to be sad over, I think.

I thought about everything that could have happened to Vlad, and I wondered how he was even able to get up in the morning.

* * *

When I faced Vlad again, he was pitiful and powerless.

It felt like fate, or maybe more like a hint from the universe. Vlad beseechingly asking for my help with his ecto-acne; for a split second I wondered if he could have read my thoughts, like he knew how much I'd cared for him in the privacy of my own mind. But that wasn't the case of course- he blackmailed me with my friend's lives to get me to comply with him. I was aggressive and derisive towards him without hesitation, back to our banter and going through those motions as though nothing had happened 10 years in the future. As if this old dude hadn't been my saving grace, as if I hadn't entrusted him with my life in two different timelines.

I'd say it was weird but at the time, it wasn't. It was natural to spit venom at him, easy and compulsive. The Vlad in this timeline just had the kind of face you wanted to punch, and the sort of perfectly derisive tone that made your blood boil. I completely forgot all of my sympathetic thoughts once he was actually there, like how you can feel sorry for a cockroach's tiny sad life until one is stark in front of you. You don't think, you smash it.

Continuing that metaphor, it's satisfying to look at the crushed remains of a bug for only a second before it's revolting in a new way. Going home and thinking about what I'd done with Vlad that day was like looking at the smeared body on the bottom of a boot. I wasn't proud. I wondered how I ever was.


End file.
